Celebrate Earth Day & Combat Climate Change All Week Long

With Earth Day approaching on Monday, we at CFE/Save the Sound are getting ready for our week-long celebration of the day. The Earth Day theme for 2013 is “The Face of Climate Change.”

This theme cannot be more appropriate- over the past two years, we’ve seen the direct impact of climate change on our coastline as four major storms struck us in such a short time frame.

So for our Earth Week celebration, we are encouraging residents to take action to combat climate change.

So how does one do this?

Simple- at any point during next week, take one small action to help combat climate change and its effects on Long Island Sound.

Here is a list of things that anyone can do to help make an impact:

• Attend the Long Island Sound Citizen Summit on April 26th and then tell a friend what you learned.

• Join a coastal cleanup (check out the list of cleanups on our website).

• Bring your own reusable cup to your regular coffee shop.

• Educate a friend by forwarding an article about climate change adaptation (like this one) to ten people.

• Cut up to 10 percent of wasted energy use by pulling plugs and chargers from the wall and turning off computers.

• Replace 3 incandescent with a compact florescent bulb — it uses 60 percent less energy than a regular light bulb and can last up to fifteen times longer.

• When you replace an appliance, buy one with an Energy Star label.

• Run your dishwasher only if it’s full.

• Adjust your thermostat — the easy adjustment of 2 degrees down in the winter and 2 degrees up in the summer could save about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

• Take reusable bags to the grocery store instead of using plastic.

• Recycle more — recycling half of your household waste can save you 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide per year.

• Start a mug, water-glass or reusable water-bottle movement in your office to cut the 25 billion single-serve plastic water bottles and billions of polystyrene cups we throw away each year.

• Plant a tree and skip the leaf blower — it can generate as much emissions in one hour as driving a car 350 miles.

• Make sure your tires are properly inflated — it can improve your gas mileage by more than 3 percent and keep 20 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere for every gallon of gasoline saved.

• Buy one week’s worth of produce from a local farm instead of a grocery store.

• Skip eating meat one day during the week — it would help save over 35,000 gallons of water. Additionally, cutting meat out of one’s diet all together would help save 5,000 pounds of carbon emissions per year.

• Write one Letter to the Editor advocating for climate change solutions or coastal adaptation strategies.

• Calculate your own carbon footprint at stopglobalwarming.org or climatecrisis.net and then change one habit.

Whatever you do to celebrate Earth Day/Week, make sure you let us know on Facebook and Twitter!

Happy Earth Week!

Posted by Rebecca Kaplan, director of communications for CFE/Save the Sound